Srikanth to defend his title; Saina seeded No. 1 at the Swiss GPG

THE NEXT CHALLENGE FOR THE SHUTTLERS is the Swiss Open GPG held in Basel. World No. 3 Saina Nehwal is the top seed and will be up against Karin Schnaase of Germany in the first round. The head-to-head count is in favour of the Indian, 1-0.

Saina began her international outing this year with the All England SSP where she was ousted in the quarter-finals. Being the top seed she will look to give her best at this event.

PV Sindhu, seeded sixth will face Natalia Perminova of Russia in round one. At the All England SSP she was out in the first round and therefore will look to up her performance.

Meanwhile men's singles shuttler Kidambi Srikanth will be defending his maiden Swiss title. Seeded third, his first round opponent is Indonesian Muhammad Bayu Pangisthu.

13th seed HS Prannoy will face Kalle Koljonen of Finland while 11th seed Ajay Jayaram faces Jiann Shiarng Chiang of Malaysia. The head-to-head count between Ajay and Jiann is 1-0.

The unseeded shuttlers in this category are Sameer Verma and Anand Pawar. Sameer's first round opponent is Emil Holst of Denmark and Anand faces seventh seed Marc Zwiebler of Germany. The German leads the head-to-head count 3-0.

Parupalli Kashyap won't be participating due to an injury he picked up at the German GPG. He had to withdraw from the tournament mid-way and thereafter missed out on the All England SSP and now the Swiss GPG.

There is no Indian participation in the doubles and mixed doubles category.